Practical Governance Quotes

Upon subjects of government, it has always appeared to me that metaphysical refinements are out of place. A Constitution of government is addressed to the common sense of the people; and never was designed for trials of logical skill or visionary speculation.

It is a maxim of wise government to deal with men not as they ought to be but as they are.

It's a question of evidence-based politics. If you know that something does not work, you should not keep doing it.

It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are.

In an age when stagecraft, gauzy themes, and sound-bites have too often been substituted for leadership, Bill Clinton as a candidate made it essential to campaigning to take the specifics of governance seriously. Practical solutions were 'in;' ideology was 'out.'

Ideas, not ideology. Voters want a government that works.

How can anybody who is the head of a nation afford not to be a prag-matist?

I have said this on many a previous occasion: that had the mix in Singapore been different, had it been 75% Indians, 15% Malays and the rest Chinese, it would not have worked. Because they believe in the politics of contention, of opposition. But because the culture was such that the populace sought a practical way out of their difficulties, therefore it has worked.

We believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and reasonableness, a reasonableness that goes beyond labels, that doesn't distort or promise to do things that we know we can't do.

If you look at how I've tried to and how I'll continue to try to govern, I'm not driven by some ideological agenda. I'm a pretty practical guy and I just want to make sure that things work.

Politics are vulgar when they are not liberalised by history, and history fades into mere literature when it loses sight of its relation to practical politics.

The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied. Liberty is not foolproof. For its beneficent working it demands self-restraint, a sane and clear recognition of the practical and attainable, and of the fact that there are laws of nature which are beyond our power to change.

The absence of utopianism in the Constitution, law, and traditional political culture has been ... important in limiting expectations concerning what can be achieved by politics. The history of the last two centuries confirms what the framers of the Constitution understood: that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the search for unalloyed virtue in public life leads to unalloyed terror.